State Street Cowl

Curls delivers mail up in the cold mountains east of San Diego. Quit laughing all of you in snow country, 20 degrees Fahrenheit is cold for us. To keep my precious sister warm, I knit both a hat and a cowl. Both the hat and the cowl were knit in Silk Garden by Noro, quite a love yarn with which to knit. The hat is one of our favorite patterns which Curls “found” on our Northwest trip a couple of year ago, Urchin by Ysolda Teague. The cowl was knit using my favorite pattern State Street Cowl by Pam Allen. I LOVE cowls since they don’t have any hanging ends for me to slop through my food when eating out.

Urchin and State Street Cowl

I’ve mentioned my “love affair” with Pinterest before. One pin lead me to the wonderful FitzBirch Crafts blog and its plethora of free patterns; cowls, socks, scarves, doorstop, etc. Here are just a few of their cowl patterns that I totally love:

Trellis Vine Cowl

Bunker Bay Cowl

Catch My Eye Cowl

Chevron Delight Infinity Scarf

As a process knitter, I love the process of knitting, trying new patterns and techniques, but usually give the items I’ve knit away since I’m not really making them for myself. My favorite person to knit for is Curls since she can actually wear the winter woolens.Now get your crafty self up and make something for some one. Have fun!

~It’s Finished Object Friday! Here are our FO’s proudly displayed! Mark off some stash! State Street Cowl is a super, super fast pattern, a two day knit. The large needles helped too! This was this week’s Wednesday’s WIP. This pattern was so worth it, that I can’t feel guilty about my “no more patterns this year” promise to myself.

I do have a few comments to make about the pattern:

The US 15 needles were harder for me to work with, I really can’t see a heck of a lot of difference. If I make the pattern again, I’ll just use US 13 throughout.

This really is a large, chunky cowl which is so very PERFECT for those cold climes. Here is San Diego it seems a bit hot, I think I’ll try to make one with two pattern repeats instead of four and see how that works.

I showed the sideways view to show that it could be used as a great head cover if it had one more pattern repeat; five instead of 4.

Q’s State Street Cowl

~I finished my first pair of socks. I have made one sock on the knitting machine, but this the first pair I have knitted. I love them. I showed you last week’s WIP Wednesday. They are warm and cozy. I would use this yarn again even though I have to hand wash them. I can’t wait to see what Ravelry’s 2013 Sock Club will have for February sock pattern. Joining these KAL have been lots of fun. They make me want to finish each project to share. You really should join a KAL.

Curl’s Beginner’s Sock

Please check Tami’s Finished Object Friday to see what other great projects have been finished.

~Ok, so I purchased a new pattern after swearing to use ones I already own. I totally fell in love with the State Street Cowl by Quince and Co. Quite awhile ago I had ordered 10 skeins of elann.com’s Peru Soft, which is a chunky yarn. This cowl used up two skeins. I love the way this is quickly knitting up, using US 13 and US 15 needles. The pattern has four repeats, if you live in a warmer climate I think two repeats would be fine. If you want a cowl that’s large enough to cover your head I’d add one more pattern repeat.

Q’s State Street Cowl

Q and I learned how to do the linen stitch, see our January 16, 2013 What’s With Yesterday? And, lovely Linen Stitch. I have started making my linen stitch scarf. I am really excited at how the color is turning out, since the pattern, by Church Mouse, calls for 3 different colors of yarn and I’m just using one. The hand dyed yarn, I chose, is turning out great. Casting on 450 stitches was a challenge, and that many stitches/row takes about fifteen minutes to knit.

This was one of my goals for the New Year, learning a new stitch. See my post. Curls 

~Have you been noticing how chunky knits are the rage this season? Agujas‘ blog showed some of the super chunk fashions. While mindlessly clicking links on some of my favorite blogs yesterday I found a chunky cowl I’d really like to make! I apologize to the blogger who had the link. I like to give credit to the person from whom I get wonderful ideas! This is the State Street Cowl, a fabulously chunky cowl I’d love to have. Never mind that in Ramona I was up in 81 degree weather today.